He found Russia working with wooden ploughs and left it equipped with atomic piles.

—Isaac Deutscher, "Stalin: An Obiturary"

I have an evil plan to save the world for every man, and I think it's better than the way it's being run Oh, the groundwork's laid No, don't be afraid I'm sure that I can fix it when I figure out the physics

For we knew only too well: Even the hatred of squalor Makes the brow grow stern. Even anger against injustice Makes the voice grow harsh. Alas, we Who wished to lay the foundations of kindness Could not ourselves be kind.

But you, when at last it comes to pass That man can help his fellow man, Do no judge us Too harshly.

Justice Lord Hawkgirl: Remember when everyone liked us? Justice Lord Green Lantern: Since when does that matter to you? Justice Lord Hawkgirl: Since I started seeing the fear on everyone's face. Justice Lord Green Lantern: You wanna talk about fear? When I was a kid, I went to bed every night scared that the whole world was gonna blow up. That's the way things were back then; folks just accepted it. They didn't think there could be a better way. But we found one.

"May the future forgive me. May history judge my actions, great or small. In the final reckoning... when I have given them paradise, and the world is free... those poor dead will not seem so many. Now, let the sky fall."

Justice Lord Batman: Think about it - a world where there's no crimes. No victims. No pain. Batman: And no choice! Who elected you, anyway? Justice Lord Batman: Who elected you? The problem with democracy is, it doesn't keep you very safe. Batman: It has other virtues. But you seem to have forgotten that. Justice Lord Batman:I didn't forget! I just chose peace and security instead. Batman: You grabbed power! Justice Lord Batman: And with that power, we've made a world where no eight-year-old boy will ever lose his parents because of some punk with a gun!* Dramatic Pause* Batman: ... You win.

The future doesn't belong to you or me. It belongs to those who come after us. Their hands will be clean of blood; they need not know any sin, if we pay that price for them. To think that a child, like Ashu, might never again know pain! Isn't that a future worth fighting for?

Angel: Thousands of people are dead because of what you've done! Jasmine: (unfazed) And how many will die because of you? I could've stopped it, Angel. All of it. War, disease, poverty. How many precious, beautiful lives would've been saved in a handful of years? Yes, I murdered thousands—to save billions. This world is doomed to drown in its own blood now. Angel: The price was too high, Jasmine. Our fate has to be our own, or we're nothing.

"Communism is based on ethical relativism and accepts no stable moral absolutes. Right and wrong are relative to the most expedient methods for dealing with class war. Communism exploits the dreadful philosophy that the end justifies the means. It enunciates movingly the theory of a classless society, but alas! its methods for achieving this noble end are all too often ignoble. Lying, violence, murder, and torture are considered to be justifiable means to achieve the millennial end. Is this an unfair indictment? Listen to the words of Lenin, the real tactician of Communist theory: "We must be ready to employ trickery, deceit, lawbreaking, withholding and concealing truth." Modem history has known many tortuous nights and horror-filled days because his followers have taken this statement seriously."

"That is what happens with projects to build model societies in other people's countries...it was preordained in that original seemingly innocuous, even idealistic phrase: "a model for a new Middle East." The disintegration of Iraq has its roots in the ideology that demanded a tabula rasa on which to write its new story. And when no such pristine tableau presented itself, the supporters of that ideology proceeded to blast and surge and blast again in the hope of reaching that promised land."

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